HARVEY: The Motion of the Heart and Blood

Published in 1628, On the Motion of the Heart and Blood was written by English physician William Harvey. In the treatise, Harvey introduces the doctrine of the circulatory system. He asserts that blood is pumped from the heart to the extremities, and then the blood returns from the extremities to the heart in a circular fashion.

DANTE: The Divine Comedy [Hell]

The first sentence of Dante’s Divine Comedy is, “Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood.” In other words, the Divine Comedy is a product of Dante’s mid-life crisis. He is disappointed in the life he has led thus far. He has an existential crisis and asks himself the “big question” – how should one live?

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS: Summa Theologica [Part I, QQ 75-76, 78-79]

75 – In Question 75, Aquinas argues that the human soul is incorporeal because corporeal bodies are not the principle of life, else all bodies would be alive. We see that only bodies imbued with an incorporeal soul have life. This argument presupposes that a certain arrangement of well-functioning physical bodies cannot animate a body.